


Adaptation

by assassi



Series: (You can have my back) Any Day [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buck PoV, Buck-Centric, Getting Together, Insecurity, Inspired by a The Weeknd Song, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28717278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassi/pseuds/assassi
Summary: That is fine. Buck’s been there before.And Eddie is too important to lose over something as stupid as… feelings.Buck has long ago learnt that his feelings were rarely reciprocated anyway.
Relationships: Buddie - Relationship, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: (You can have my back) Any Day [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099937
Comments: 3
Kudos: 204





	Adaptation

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thank you for the positive feedback on part 1 :) Here's part 2. (I still don't own 9-1-1.) It was written in a hurry and a burst of inspiration and Merlot ;)  
> I know the song is focused on something else probably but from the first time I heard it I had Buck in my mind and I knew I had to use it for his POV. Hope it fits with you too :)
> 
> Note: To make things easier to understand: just Italics = song lyrics; Italics in "" = memory/quote; Italics in '' = Buck's own thoughts.

_When the sun goes up, you're searching for a love  
So your heart won't lead you to anyone  
When the sun goes down, I know what you become  
You become awake, unlike the rest of us_ _…_

It takes a single look in the morning after Buck helps a wounded and beaten Eddie into his bed to realize that that’s not all there is to it, just friends helping each other. There’s something deep and unnamed in Eddie’s eyes as they stare at Buck in the silence of the morning hours; there’s a hint of something heated there too, that Buck recognizes all too well even though it’s not the time, not the mood, not the moment. Not now.

But the promise is there and Buck knows it will inevitably happen, soon.

They’ve been tiptoeing around it for too long.

He knows he wants it. Any way Eddie might be willing to have it – just sex, just once or a regular thing between friends; friends with benefits; or… everything, all in…

Buck knows it’s a futile dream and he berates himself sternly. He has a few days, maybe, to prepare himself and guard his heart before the dam breaks.

_I lay my head on a thousand beds  
It's been a test to see how far a man can go without himself_ _…_

It’s not new to Buck, this… arrangement with Eddie. He’s not famous with _that_ but he’s been with guys. What started in his college days (yes, Chimney, Buck has been to college and he got there all by himself, thank you very much!) turned out to not be a single time, not an experiment. Buck knows who he is and that’s not a life crisis he’s experiencing. His sexuality is nothing new.

Nor is being someone’s dirty little secret.

That is fine. Buck’s been there before.

And Eddie is too important to lose over something as stupid as… feelings.

Buck has long ago learnt that his feelings were rarely reciprocated anyway.

_I think I lost the only piece that held it all in place  
Now my madness is the only love I let myself embrace_ _…_

He’s been called ‘hot-headed’ and ‘reckless’ many times, often leading to an argument with Bobby. Buck can’t change how emotional he is.

Or the fact that amongst all of them he is the only one who has no one waiting for him at home.

“Buck, get back here _now_!”, Bobby barks over the coms, his voice edged with worry.

It still confuses Buck what they truly are, him and Bobby. And the line between captain and a father figure is so easily blurred sometimes.

“Just two more apartments to check, I can do this, Bobby…!”

“That’s an order, Buckley!”

Ah. Captain then.

He sighs, grits his teeth and makes a move to exit the building. He’s almost reached the still structurally stable stairs when a weak whimper makes him halt and strain his ears.

“Please…”

He dives into the flames with no hesitance.

The kid is barely 8 or 9 and Buck’s heart clenches. He knows why, knows he’s projecting and being too emotionally invested but he can’t stop his hands from shaking a little as he cradles the small body just a second before it slumps into unconsciousness.

“Hey, hey, stay with me now, kid, come on! Bobby! I got an 8yo, male, smoke inhalation, currently unconscious…”

“Got that, Hen and Chim are waiting, just get the hell outta there!”

He runs all the way down the stairs, every second crucial in the kid’s condition. He makes it in time, he knows as Hen’s face relaxes just a second after she starts the check-up. It’s not too late. It takes just another second for the kid to cough weakly and take a big gulp of breath.

Buck releases the breath he didn’t know he’d held, himself, his face relaxing into a relieved smile.

“You pulled quite the stunt, Buck”, Chim says.

“He’s the only one who could have done this”, Bobby mutters.

Buck knows what his captain means, simply that Buck’s the fastest in the crew.

Bobby’s eyes bore into Buck; he’s pissed-off, reluctantly impressed and beyond all… worried. He nods curtly and doesn’t comment more.

Behind his back another pair of worried brown eyes stare into him in silence.

_I made a trade  
Gave away our days  
For a little fame_ _…_

There was a time when Buck actually did this kind of stunts for attention, for the chance to become “that guy on TV” who got all kinds of friend requests and easy lays with girls who only cared about quick fame and good looks.

_Adapted to these models  
Who_ _’_ _s adapted to the bottle  
They take it down like water  
Just to burn away their sorrows  
I'll stay up till tomorrow  
Just to tear down all their morals_ _…_

He is not that guy anymore. And that is not the reason he risks his life nowadays.

The kid’s eyes were blue instead of warm brown and he didn’t wear glasses. His hair was straight and black instead of blonde and curly. But that doesn’t stop Buck from imagining what would Chris feel in that situation, what would have Eddie done, what would have Buck done if it was his… Eddie’s kid.

Eddie’s.

_‘Don’t cross a line. Don’t get over yourself.’_

He’s done it once already. It’s all so different and all just the same.

_.._ _she's pure_

_So pure,  
Like the love that's so uncut and raw and clean  
So clean,  
As opposed to what I offered..._

He knows now that putting Abby on a pedestal had been a mistake. He’s learnt a hard lesson, that just because you love someone doesn’t mean they have to love you back. Even if they do say so. Even if they do, really, just not the same way. He’d watched her, stupidly besotted as he had been, and he’d thought ‘ _She might just be the one’_.

She’d left just before he’d gathered the courage to propose.

After that, with any of the others, few as they were: Taylor, Ali… he knew it wouldn’t be the same. He wasn’t the same. He’d almost forgotten himself for a moment with Ali but he wouldn’t do the same mistake again.

He’d almost slipped with Eddie too but he’d caught himself in time.

_‘Just because you want a happily ever after doesn’t mean they want it too.’_

And love was just a nice dream, a fairy tale that didn’t happen to one Evan Buckley.

_“Let’s not ruin it…”_

He wouldn’t.

_But it's okay I adapted anyway_ _…_

When Eddie shows up that night on his doorstep again Buck has a bad feeling about it. First, it doesn’t look like Eddie’s here for a quickie, a fast relief from the day’s madness. Two, he looks grimly determined and Buck doesn’t know what to make of this. He tries to play it off with the usual ease between them but Eddie doesn’t let him.

“What does it take for you to take this seriously?”, Eddie cuts to the chase and Buck is left feeling adrift and blinking owlishly.

“Er, to take wha-…”, he starts but Eddie waves a hand between the two of them, annoyed.

“This. Us. Yes, I don’t go advertising my private life all around but I’ll yell it in the middle of the station if that’s what it takes to make you realize.”

“Realize what, Eddie?”, Buck asks quietly.

“That you can’t do this anymore!”, Eddie yells. “Those stunts you pull? I see it in your eyes, you think you’re the only one who can do this because you have no family. Well, take that, Buck – you do! And not just Maddie! You have a… You have _me_.”

The last is said quietly, as if all the fight has suddenly left Eddie. Or as if his old insecurities are resurfacing again and he wonders if he’s enough. Enough for Buck.

“What are we, to you? Is it just a… convenience, have I read this wrong?”, Eddie wonders.

“Eds… no…”, Buck chokes.

“Then what, Buck? Fucking _what_?”, Eddie pleads.

“I just… I didn’t want to assume… I didn’t want to get too… attached again”, he mutters, eyes on the floor.

“Ah, idiota”, Eddie curses then takes the few steps separating them and gathers Buck in his arms. “What does it take you to believe? Do you want to fill up those HR forms? Come clean to Bobby and the others? Just.. work with me here, tell me what…”

“Stay”, Buck mutters quietly. _‘Not just tonight.’_

Eddie slams his lips onto Buck’s, as if willing their whole conversation and his conviction that they could do this into Buck’s very core. It isn’t really a prelude to anything more and he pulls back after a moment only to rest his forehead on Buck’s, full lips stretched into a small smile.

A thought, firmly forbidden for so long, comes to the forefront of Buck’s mind again, hesitant but hopeful. 

_He might just be the one._


End file.
